[BEAM-2166] Remove Coder.Context from the public API

• Type: Improvement
• Status: Resolved
• Priority: P2
• Resolution: Fixed
• Affects Version/s: 2.0.0
• Fix Version/s: 2.0.0
• Component/s: sdk-java-core, sdk-py-core
• Labels: Done
• Assignee: Robert Bradshaw
• Reporter: Robert Bradshaw
• Created: 04/May/17 00:15
• Updated: 06/Oct/20 21:53
• Resolved: 09/May/17 18:17

Description

Justification:

• Contexts add confusion and complexity to the public API (e.g. https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/BEAM-1448)
• Leaf (user-written) coders are nearly always nested.
• Coders are being removed from sources, which was the initial need for context.
• It is unclear how much value, if any, this provides for internal performance.
• There may be performance (as well as simplification) gains in removing this for the Fn API.

Fully removing this distinction from the internals can be defered until the last bullet points are more completely investigated.

Issue Links

• is related to: BEAM-1448 Coder encode/decode context documentation is lacking
• links to: GitHub Pull Request #2871
• links to: GitHub Pull Request #2921
• links to: GitHub Pull Request #2924
• links to: GitHub Pull Request #2930
• links to: GitHub Pull Request #2933
• links to: GitHub Pull Request #2960